Love so Nearly Lost
by WhiteTiger3
Summary: It's been a year since the events of Series 2. Neither Maddy nor Rhydian have forgotten the promise they made to each other, and both of them are finding it hard to wait. But when an unexpected arrival prompts Rhydian to leave in search of his distant love, a series of spiralling events threatens to jeopardise their future together. Maddian guaranteed! ;D PLEASE READ!
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

It was a year after Maddy and her parents had left for the wild pack. Rhydian sat alone in the woods. Everyone had moved on but him: after Dr Whitewood had given up with her questioning, Tom and Shan had been able to carry on with life almost as if nothing had happened. Well that was lucky for them.

Rhydian still felt as empty as he did the day Maddy left, and nothing could fill that hollow hole in his heart.

He had really buckled down in school and was achieving fantastic results; he aimed to have made something of himself by the time he was finally able to go in search of Maddy. Whenever that would be…

Purely out of boredom, he began scrolling through the contacts on his phone. The cursor fell on Maddy's name. Rhydian clicked on it to see her details and began reading through their text messages from all those months ago.

_Maddy—meet you in the woods later? x_

_Me—Ok xx_ :D

Looking back, he felt a mixture of pain and warmth – not without a hint of regret. _Why didn't I admit my feelings earlier? _Rhydian thought, _Maybe it would be easier now if we had had some more time being… well ….. not just friends._

This was hardly the first time he had thought about Maddy like this: he used Eolas regularly now to check up on her and he was sure she did the same. At least he hoped she did.

Every time he saw her or thought about her he had to force himself not to go out in search of her, and now was no different. _RHYDIAN! Stop it! _He thought,_ Remember what you told her? 'when I'm older and no one cares what I do'? Well you aren't much older and you can't do what you want ….. yet._


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Maddy was sat on the crest of a hill with the wild pack, all in wolf form. It was going to be a full moon the next night, they all watched it. Nearly perfect.

Maddy felt no different to Rhydian. Nearly every wolf in the pack had stopped thinking about him all the time – even Ceri! They knew it was going to be another few years before he came in search of them, so they thought it was best not to dwell on things that are only going to make you miserable.

Maddy skulked off and, behind a tree, turned back into human form. Luckily Jana never minded this. She knelt on the soft earth and, gently pushing her finger tips into the damp leaves that littered the ground, looked up into the sky. She could see everything, smell everything, hear everything – Eolas. Rhydian was there. She loved him so much.

Emma appeared a moment later, still in wolf form, the Eolas had just ended, leaving Maddy (as usual) in a crying, muddy heap. Her mum pushed up her chin with her snout and licked her cub lovingly.

"Mam!" Maddy groaned, a smile spreading across her face. Emma disappeared into a bush for a moment and reappeared as her human self.

"Come 'ere pet." She said, "You know, me and your dad thought it'd get easier. But as you are showing us, it's just getting harder."

"Mam, when is he gonna come?"

"Mads, it's only been a year. He probably thinks that isn't enough time to wait. He's still with his foster parents isn't he? And as they say, 'absence makes the heart grow fonder'!"

_And more miserable. _Maddy thought.

"We're safe Mads, and that's all that matters."

But all the time, Alric was listening.


	3. Chapter 3

Rhydian was walking home from school the next day with Shannon and Tom, eager to get to the mores well before the full moon – he wanted to use Eolas to see Maddy first. They were chatting about school work and remembering the time when Maddy brought her parents to school in wolf form for her presentation last year. (Although Tom and Shan had 'moved on', they still liked reminiscing about the 'good old days'.)

"I'm sorry but that was the best plan ever!" Rhydian said.

"Yeah, it was awesome." Tom replied.

"I wonder if they've told anyone in the wild pack about that," Shannon said. "I 'spose they wouldn't believe them anyway."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Rhydian responded, "Jana is trying to show the pack that humans are friends. Maybe they _would_ believe that Emma and Dan were able to do what they did."

Shan and Tom said bye and turned off down another path. Rhydian continued down the trail, when Alric appeared for the first time since Maddy had left. Tom spun around and dragged Shannon back towards Rhydian.

"What do you want Alric?!" Shouted Rhydian, veins beginning to blacken and eyes already pale yellow.

"I see you haven't got your tame wolf with you today." Alric said quietly, dangerously, "Where is she then?"

"She's gone, and you'll never find her!"

Tom and Shannon stood a few metres behind Rhydian, ready to intervene.

"Oh, and what makes you so sure that I haven't seen her… with the wild pack!?"

They stood face to face, about two metres apart, both walking around slowly in a circle.

"If you even touch her I swear-"

"What can _you _do to _me_?" Alric hissed, "Set your human friends on me? I'm so scared!"

Rhydian glanced over his shoulder, noticing his friends for the first time.

"_Go!" _He whispered harshly and they walked away, but just hid behind a tree.

"No Alric. I can fight my own battles. Unlike some people."

It was clear that the wild wolfblood was trying to keep control of his urge to transform; he had something to say.

"At first I couldn't believe you didn't go with her. But then I remembered. It all came together. You don't care about her! You just pretended you did so that they would keep you in their pack. But it got out of control because she really did care about you. And now-"

"I won't let _you_ tell _me_ about caring about someone – look at Jana! She is your daughter and you rejected her! I do care about Maddy, Alric. Our secret was about to go global! There was nothing else they could do! And there is nothing you can say that will persuade me that I haven't done what's best for her. For both of us."

"If you cared about her, you would have gone with her!" Alric exclaimed, "Why only yesterday I saw her crying with her mother, asking when you would come for her. I don't know how long she will wait, Rhydian. It's amazing how quickly you forget things in the wild." He started to whisper so only Rhydian could've possibly heard him, "And maybe if you don't find her, I'll put her out of her misery."

With this Alric disappeared into the forest, leaving Rhydian staring after him, baffled.

Tom and Shan rushed to him.

"You don't really think he was telling the truth do you?" Tom said.

"And even if he did see her, you know she would never forget you!" Shannon assured Rhydian, "Maddy would wait forever if she had to."

"I should have gone with her!" Shouted Rhydian, "We could've stayed in the wild forever! What if she does forget me? I mean, I nearly forgot her in the wild…."

"Rhydian. She's safe and that's all that matters."

"Didn't you hear what he said? He said that if I didn't find her, 'he'd put her out of her misery'!" Rhydian yelled.

"You know Jana would never let that happen!" Tom said.

"You don't know Alric like I do."

Rhydian ran into the forest.


	4. Chapter 4

A full moon for the wild pack was very different from that of a tame wolf, Maddy and her family soon discovered. For a start, everyone is in wolf form anyway, so there isn't a transformation. Maddy missed this at first, but in the end she got used to it. Everyone has bags of energy, so the pack spend a lot of the night play-fighting and racing in the moonlight. The Smiths, of course, loved the freedom that they had never had in Stoneybridge.

That night was no different. Jana was darting around like a rabid fox (as usual) and challenging every wolf she could find to a race. Maddy couldn't help herself. There was still a subconscious competitiveness between the two females, even though Jana was alpha.

They ran alongside each-other with incredible speed. _Jana may be fast, _Maddy thought, _but she's careless – especially on a full moon! _

Just as Maddy had predicted, Jana crashed head on into a bramble bush! _Ha! _Maddy thought, before jogging over to her competitor. If this had happened on any other day, Jana would be sulking in the hollow of a tree somewhere, trying to repair her injured pride. But it was full moon, and no one could dampen the alpha's spirits then.


	5. Chapter 5

Rhydian was still running. He hadn't even stopped to transform. His bag was in a muddy ditch back by the main path and his lungs where burning with the chilled air. _'Put her out of her misery'._ The words echoed in his mind as he ran. _'I don't know how long she'll wait'. _He imagined Alric closing in on Maddy while she slept. He sped up.

He thought he would be happy when he did this. He had pictured himself, in three years' time, strolling through the woods, nothing to fear. But _this_? He had never thought he would do_ this_. Sure, he had wanted to do it nearly every second of every day for the last year, but he presumed he would just have to put up with it for another couple of years and then it'd be fine.

Suddenly Rhydian stopped. He didn't know where he was going. It occurred to him that he would have to try using Eolas _as a wolf! _Rhydian sat down and looked up at the sky. _It works! _He thought, _it actually works! _Rhydian had never even imagined anything more intense than Eolas as a _human_, but this… It was amazing! He could see everything, smell everything, hear everything, but he could taste and feel it too! It was like human Eolas, but a million times stronger. Rhydian didn't dare think what it would be like near a pylon. His mind's eye whipped through the forest, the suddenly he saw the wild pack. He didn't wait to pick everyone out; he had seen Jana's fiery coat – who else could it be? But just to make sure, he found Maddy.

Rhydian ran all through the night, and remained in wolf form well into the next day, when he finally stopped to rest. However, he was woken by a vision of Alric hunting Maddy down, and the remembrance that the lone wolf probably had a better idea of where she was than he did. He transformed back into a wolf and began to run.


	6. Chapter 6

Maddy, along with the rest of the pack, slept until the afternoon of the next day. It was always strange after a full moon, because everyone woke up in human form! It was always funny to see the wildbloods in clothes and shoes, and was a nice experience for those who had lived among humans – even Jana.

Maddy was awake a while before the rest that day, so she decided to roam the forest a while before the pack all transformed. Of course she thought about Rhydian. It'd been a year. They were 15 now. _Why hasn't he come yet?_ She pondered, frustrated. _WHY, WHY, __**WHY!**_ She checked herself: she knew she would wait forever if she had to (although she really hoped she wouldn't). She knew there could be a million reasons why he hadn't come yet. One being that it had only been a year! Another being that how could he just disappear without causing a commotion; there was a limit to how much Tom and Shan could cover up. But there were others too. Ones that Maddy didn't dare think about. Had Alric finally done what he had always wanted to do? Killed Rhydian? _That's ridiculous! _She thought, _Why would he do that _now,_ when Rhydian said that they had made peace the last time? Unless… No! He wouldn't have lied about something so serious._

She wandered back, to find the pack a herd of stampeding wolves and humans; some of them had transformed automatically in their rage at who had just made himself known.

"What happened?" Maddy inquired worriedly.

"_Maddy!" _Emma dashed over to her daughter, "Alric, he came! Looking for _you!"_

"What?" She said, astonished.

Emma embraced her daughter.

"You are lucky Jana told him there was a pylon nearby, otherwise he would have used Eolas and found you in a second!" Maddy's mother pulled away and held her daughter firmly by the shoulders, "Where were you anyway?"

"Oh, just having a walk before you all woke up." Maddy said.

"Well there'll be no more of that young lady! Not until the danger's over."


	7. Chapter 7

Three days had passed and Rhydian was still looking for Maddy. He was sure Alric could've found her by now, and was hoping that he hadn't done anything yet.

He couldn't remember the last time he had rested and he was soaked through from a storm he had refused to shelter from. Rhydian slowed to a trot and then to a walk. Soon he came to clearing in the trees, the lack of camouflage beginning to make him uneasy. He heard a rustle. Then a muffled shout and the blood-curdling bang of a bullet leaving a gun. The wolf yelped in agony, but refused to stop moving. He pushed through the pain and ran on past the clearing, back into the safety of the dense foliage.

He carried on until the pain was too much for him and then he flopped down, under the cover of darkness, and slept.

_Whiteness. Bright lights. He was in a laboratory. _

_"He's not a wolf," Said Dr Whitewood, "This is a hybrid species: part human, part wolf! This is my big break!"_

_She walked over to Rhydian and observed as another needle was eased under his fur. He managed to turn his head. He saw Maddy, Jana and what looked like the entire wild pack, piled up on surgery tables, unconscious. There was no escape._

He woke up. Looking up, he saw a post nailed into the ground: _PRIVATE PROPERTY – NO TRESSPASSING! _


	8. Chapter 8

Maddy stayed with her mum for every second of every day, only escaping for a couple of minutes of Eolas. She loved wolf Eolas! Her mind's eye whisked through the woodland. She gasped. What she saw was Rhydian in wolf form, limping through the dense forest! His eyes where tired and the blood that stained his left shoulder told her that he was hurt. Maddy snapped out of the Eolas and transformed back into a human. She started running over to her mum.

"Mam!" She shouted.

"What is it pet?" Emma replied: she had been sitting under a tree napping, in human form.

"Mam, it's Rhydian. He's hurt! He's in the forest, about 30miles away; he must have come looking for us!"

Jana had heard the panicked convocation and headed over.

"What's happening?" The alpha asked, "Did you say Rhydian was looking for us?"

"Yes! And he's hurt!" Maddy yelled.

Emma got to her feet.

"Pet, you know we can't do anything right now, not with Alric on the prowl nearby."

"Well we can't just do nothing!" Maddy exclaimed, surprised and angered by her mother's attitude.

"For once I agree with Maddy, Mrs Smith – we have to help him."

With that, Jana leapt up onto a tree stump and declared her plan to the rest of the pack. She said that anyone willing to assist them was welcome to come. The description 'willing to assist' with the recovery of Rhydian Morris, however, didn't cover any pack members other than Ceri. This was predominantly down to the fact that they didn't all have fond memories of Rhydian from when he was kicked out of the wild pack when Alric was alpha.

"Fine," Jana said, "That's ok; I know many of you are still wary of Rhydian." She turned to Maddy and Ceri, "I guess it's just us then girls!"

Maddy and Jana transformed to join Ceri in wolf form and they all began walking away from the pack. But Dan was on their tail.

"You don't think you're actually _going, _do you Maddy?" He said, "Leaving the pack when Alric is out and about and probably wouldn't mind killing you _and _Jana?"

However, even despite his efforts, Maddy ignored her father and continued into the forest.

"You let her _GO_?" Shouted Emma, incredulous.

"She has to make her own mistakes, Emma."

"And get killed while she's making them?"

"Jana's alpha; she'll protect her."


	9. Chapter 9

Rhydian had never been in so much pain in his whole life. The wound made by the bullet was only small and, now that he'd licked it clean, didn't _look _bad at all. But, as they say, looks can be deceptive. He could only hope that Alric wouldn't find him and bump him off while he was weak and alone.

He could smell the wildbloods now, so it wasn't hard to navigate. He headed straight in the direction of the scent and soon he could sense that he was close. Strangely enough, up to this point after the shot, Rhydian hadn't thought about getting closer to _Maddy_. He had only thought closer to _safety _and _help. _But as the scent got easier to follow and he became surer and surer that he was very near, he remembered why he was doing this: to make sure Maddy was safe from Alric. Suddenly, he stopped thinking about the agony he was in and just thought about Maddy. _Is she safe? Is Alric already there? _Rhydian sniffed hard. He definitely couldn't smell Alric in the direction of the pack. Of course there were traces of the former alpha, but this was to be expected considering he had lived in those woods, on and off, for years.

Rhydian didn't use Eolas anymore. He didn't think it was necessary, bearing in mind that the scent was now so strong that he couldn't possibly go wrong and he didn't want to waste any time or energy now that he was so close. But if he had, he would've seen that Maddy wasn't with the pack any longer. That she, along with his mother and the alpha, was walking into a trap.


	10. Chapter 10

The three had been running through the trees for just over half an hour. Maddie was leading and was becoming more and more excited every second. She howled occasionally, so that Rhydian might hear her. Suddenly, she stopped. They all stopped. They could smell Alric nearby. They started looking around calmly, knowing that they would be fine three against one. The group began prowling around, slowly, deliberately; they had to show Alric that they knew he was there and that he didn't stand a chance.

Something rustled in a bush. They began to growl. He appeared. Maddy ran forward and pounced on the wolf, starting to lick his face. Ceri joined her, but Jana stood a bit behind them, waiting for her turn to greet Rhydian. He yelped in pain; Maddy was leaning heavily on his bad shoulder. She jumped back. Looking up, she saw the former alpha.

Rhydian leapt up and placed himself in front of the three females, growling ferociously at his enemy: the lone wolf who had faked forgiveness all that time ago and had threatened to kill the person he loved more than life itself.

The wounded wolf made a move towards Alric, but he was swiftly intercepted by Ceri, who knew better than to let her baby boy go into a fight with a serious injury! The three females took Rhydian's place opposite the opposition and for a minute no one moved.

In a flash, Alric flew into the air and landing heavily on Maddy, causing her to wince in pain. Rhydian, however, began to walk slowly towards the ex-alpha, his growl like the low rumble of an engine. Jana and Ceri followed him, with the same menacing growl reverberating in their throats. Alric loosened his grip allowing Maddy to slip out and fall into Rhydian's arms. He nudged her up though, and all four of them stood facing the lone wolf.

The defenceless wolf fell to the floor and in a second he was human again.

"Nothing I can do will ever allow you to feel the pain that you have caused me." He said to Rhydian, "You have cost me my daughter and my pack and look at what my efforts have done?! Made everyone happier! I have nothing to live for! Please, Rhydian! Put me out of my misery!"

Rhydian stepped forward, and transformed.

"You lost what you lost because you refused to be fair." He said, "Now you say 'kill me' and expect me to consider? Why would I do you the favour?"

With that, the four ran away into the woodland, Rhydian back in wolf form.


	11. Chapter 11

"Heeeey!" Maddy moaned, as Rhydian poked her awake.

"Good morning to you too!" He replied, as she sat up.

He gave her a good morning kiss and stood up, pulling Maddy up with him.

"Soooooooooo…" Rhydian said as they walked towards the river to drink.

"So what!"

"What've you been up to?"

"Apart from hunting and missing you? Not much. You?"

"Same. Well, except the hunting."

"Sounds fun."

_Why is it this awkward?! _Rhydian thought. _It shouldn't be this difficult!_

They didn't talk for a while. When they reached the river they sat down and Maddy splashed her face with the icy water and Rhydian watched as she combed through her matted hair with grimy fingers.

"Sorry," She said, realising that he was looking, "I haven't had a reason to freshen up until now. STUPID HAIR!" She yanked painfully at a huge knot. Rhydian took her hand.

"Don't worry! You look beautiful."

Their eyes met. They closed in for a kiss…..

"Wait!" Maddy said, pulling Rhydian to his feet, "I have a better idea!"

"Is that possible?" He replied.

"Well, maybe not _better. _But just as good!"

They ran away from the water's edge and then stopped. They turned around.

"Come on!" Maddy shouted.

Together they ran at lightning speed towards the river and hurled themselves in! Rhydian surfaced and said:

"Why does this remind me of something? Now what about your other good idea?"

**So! It's over! Tee he. Hopefully there will be a lot more Wolfblood fanfic coming your way soon! Also thank-you all sooooooooooo much for your reviews and support! It's really motivated me to write more. BTW, if you want that fluffy Wolfblood Maddien feeling, then listen to 'Counting Stars' by OneRepublic and 'I will wait' by Mumford&Sons. Also, there is a great Utube video called ****_Maddy and Rhydian Wrecking Ball. _****Really cute!**

** SERIES THREE I NEED YOU! I CANT WAIT TIL' NEXT SEPMTEMBER! Oh well….. ;D**


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